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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22437913">Memory Gothic</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndustryRiverValley/pseuds/IndustryRiverValley'>IndustryRiverValley</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Code Lyoko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Flashbacks, Found Family, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:47:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,399</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22437913</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndustryRiverValley/pseuds/IndustryRiverValley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aelita deals with her PTSD as best she can, with a little help.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aelita Schaeffer &amp; Ulrich Stern, Jeremie Belpois/Aelita Schaeffer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Memory Gothic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>To preface this fic, Code Lyoko meant a lot to me as a kid. I was diagnosed with PTSD last semester but I’ve likely had it for about a decade, including when I first watched this show as a child. Aelita was and still is very important to me because whether it was intentional or not Aelita shows so many symptoms of PTSD and it made me feel more normal as a kid. Please note that this is a vent fic.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>You can’t tell how old you are to save your life. All you know is that you can’t move your hands and you have no idea where your dad is. The men in black completely snuck up on you tonight, and they wasted no time in hauling you out of bed and restraining you. There’s only one of them in your room with you, and he looks less than pleased to be on babysitting duty. You’re not sure when you started crying, but now you have a healthy stream of tears running down your face and with every sound you make your captor gets more and more tense. It’s only when you hiccup that he actually turns to you and says… something. You’ve only just moved into this house from a long way away and you can’t understand what he’s saying and that seems to upset him more. He stalks his way over to you muttering something else in his strange language, you start crying harder and as he stands right in front of you, he raises his hand and strikes you hard on your left cheek. It hurts. It hurts a lot and your hearing goes all fuzzy and you feel blood start trickling out of your nose the force of the hit and the shock of it knocked you onto your side, head landing on the hardwood below you. He kept advancing on you and you tried to run away but you couldn’t stand up and when he grabbed your upper arm to make you stand again and then he- </i>
</p><p>You wake up with a start, you’re sweating and panting as you frantically scan your eyes over your surroundings. This is a familiar thing. The lights are all off, it’s an ungodly hour of the morning and you’re curled up on your floor, trying to calm yourself down. </p><p> Your name is Aelita, and you’re doing everything you can to stop yourself from spiraling into a breakdown. You take a few deep breaths and make yourself sprawl out into a starfish, and you smush your hands into your impossibly soft rug, trying to lose yourself in the soft fibers. It works to help bring down your racing heartbeat, and once you can’t hear the blood rushing through your ears anymore, you decide that it’s probably time to try standing up. With a few more deep breaths and great care, you bring your arms to your sides, and try to haul yourself up to no avail. With one more deep breath, and some added help from your bed frame, you stand up on your shaky legs. All you want right now, is some ice cold water and you happen to be lucky enough to have a dorm right down the hall from one of the vending areas. </p><p>You slip on some house shoes and drop by the bathroom just to get a look at yourself in the mirror. You’re not gonna lie, you look pretty rough. Your hair’s a greasy mess, your face is a splotchy red, your eyes are puffy with impressive bags underneath them and you’re still pretty sweaty. You consider a fast shower, but your paranoia was starting to rear its ugly head and you can’t take a shower when you feel like that. So you just splash some water on your face, making sure to keep at least one eye open at all times even when the water stings them. You exit the bathroom as quiet as possible, pulling the door slowly behind you and using your other hand to absorb the noise from it closing. You walk slowly down the hall, making sure to keep your footsteps light. Looking at the doors of your peers makes you wonder; who else was struggling to keep their calm tonight? Did Jeremie, Ulrich, Odd and Yumi have nightmares like hers? Granted, theirs would be a bit different, being focused more on Lyoko battles and all the trauma that goes with it. </p><p>That brings up some guilt that you’ve been dealing with for a while. None of them would be experiencing all the stress and violence of Lyoko and XANA if not for you. Hell, Jeremie stays up till dawn most nights and constantly skips meals just to research your anti-virus. It’s hard not to notice the growing bags under his eyes and his growing caffeine addiction. You really really like Jeremie, and you know he likes you too but with all this guilt swirling around you, you can’t understand why. Maybe if you talked to him about your feelings and your worries about him he’d understand, or maybe he’d just get snappy at you again leaving you hurt and angry. You’ve been doing the “thousand yard stare” at this vending machine for the past few minutes, totally lost in your thoughts when you hear someone clear their throat gently. The noise makes you flinch, and you whip around to see one of your aforethought of friends, Ulrich. You give him a weak smile and he nods knowingly at you.</p><p>“Trouble sleeping, princess?”</p><p>“I guess you could say that, but it’s fine really all I need is some water and then I’ll be right back to sleep”</p><p>He raises one of his eyebrows as he looks you over, and he clearly doesn’t believe you. You drop the facade quickly as you slide back against the wall and sit down on the floor. Ulrich just sits down beside you and you set your head on his shoulder. </p><p>“So what’s been going on? Are you having your nightmares again?” He asks with concern. What he and the rest of your friends don’t know is that you hadn’t stopped having nightmares, you’d just stopped telling them about them.</p><p>“Well, the truth is, they never really stopped. I have at least three nightmares a week and it’s been that way for a few months.” You whisper out, your head is dislodged from its spot on Ulrich as he turns to look at you with wide eyes. </p><p>“Aelita are you serious? You’ve really been having these awful nightmares for months and you never told us? Why would you do that?” His tone sounds a little bit hurt and it makes your earlier guilt slam against your ribs like a tidal wave. You go to stand up but Ulrich grabs your hand and the look on his face compels you to stay. You run your hands through your hair and look at the wall away from Ulrich. </p><p>“I just, I didn’t want to bother y’all with more of my problems. So much of everything you guys have to deal with is my fault and you shouldn’t have to deal with it! It’s not fair to you guys, you don’t deserve this.” You can hear the whiney tone to your voice and it makes you burn with a familiar self loathing that threatens to bring up a new wave of tears. Ulrich tightens his grip on your hand and tries to comfort you. </p><p>“Aelita, we all swore that we’d keep each other safe, and work to defeat XANA, whatever it takes. If that means comforting you through nightmares then so be it. We’re all here for you Aelita, no matter what, don’t be afraid to come to us.” Ulrich said with a small smile.</p><p>This level of emotion is a tad out of character for Ulrich, so you know it’s serious. You shift so that you can give him a hug. You’re an only child and didn’t have much of a life on Earth before you were living on Lyoko permanently, but your group gives you all those sibling feelings that you missed out on. Ulrich stands and holds his hand out to help you up. You get your coveted ice water and with that, you both walk off toward your dorm. Ulrich stays by your side until you open the door, thank him, and you head off to bed again. </p><p>In the morning you meet everyone for breakfast as normal. Jeremie, Odd and Ulrich carry on with the regular banter and you interject on occasion. Eventually, Ulrich looks at you and raises one eyebrow to ask how the rest of your night went. You give him a small smile and a thumbs up, because you were able to fall asleep once again, with no dreams at all this time, which is fine by you.</p>
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